And Faster We're Sliding: The Last Five Years
by MeadowWard
Summary: Skye's greatest love story, told from end to beginning. Ward's greatest love story, told from beginning to end. A series of vignettes inspired by the storyline of "The Last Five Years" by Jason Robert Brown. One-shot, will contain no additonal parts.


**A/N:** And here I have combined two of my favorite things: The Last Five years, one of my favorite musicals of all time, adapted into a story about Skye and Ward told through a series of vignettes. Mirroring their counterparts from the show, Skye's story is told from end to beginning and Ward's is told from beginning to the end. I own neither show and it breaks my heart every day. Please review if you have the time! Thanks Xx

14.

 _"_ _Run away like it's simple, like it's right"_

 _\- Still Hurting_

She comes home to an empty house and a letter on the kitchen table. The page is not even half-filled, and the first three lines are excuses.

 _I was never good for you._

 _I could never rescue you._

 _I'm not the only one who is hurting here._

A line is scratched through all of these. Beneath is what he meant for her, the words he intended to leave her with. Two words only.

 _I'm sorry._

His wedding ring acts as a paper weight.

2.

 ** _"You, breaking the circle; you, taking the light."_**

 ** _\- Shiksa Goddess_**

This girl is _everything._

She's smart and funny and in a lot of ways, his mother's worst nightmare. She's sexy and cool and strong, his opposite and his equal all at once. A level two communications agent, but he was willing to overlook it the moment he caught sight of that body in that little black dress.

The chemistry is instant. They both feel it.

They sleep together on the first date and it blows his mind.

He has a mission to leave for in four hours but all he can think of is Skye and how good she feels and tastes and how on earth is he supposed to focus on saving the world when she arches into him like this and says his name like that while writhing underneath him?

He leaves it to the last minute to peel himself from between her thighs. She grabs him by the wrist as he stands, then wraps her hand around his still-erect cock.

"When will I see you again?" She asks, her voice low.

His eyes are rolling into the back of his head as she strokes his length. "Soon."

"How soon?"

"As soon as I can," is the only answer he can offer as she releases him and stands on the edge of the bed. She, like he, is completely naked and now he's eye level with her perfect breasts. "But if I don't go now, they'll arrest me for treason." he says, just a hint of resentment held against the job he typically loves. He grabs behind the back of her knees and sweeps her legs out from beneath her. She lands on the mattress with a laugh, spreading her legs to welcome him as he presses against her for one more fleeting kiss.

Skye sighs against his mouth and his heart bangs against his ribcage. When he pulls away a second later, he smiles.

"I've been waiting for someone like you."

12.

 _"_ _We could be together, here together, sharing our night, spending our time, and you are going to choose someone else to be with."_

 _\- See I'm Smiling_

He came to the training camp for her birthday, so he said, but he can't stay long.

He's got another mission. She knows better.

"Whatever. If you have to, then you have to, so whatever," she bites out, arms crossed, but no matter how tight she holds, she can't keep herself from shaking.

Just a few minutes ago, she'd taken his surprise arrival as a positive sign; a new start. She'd dared to let herself feel hopeful, to chance an arm around his neck as she attempted to pull him close. When their lips met, his were unmoving, and she knew that nothing had changed.

"You could stay with your wife on her fucking birthday, you know." she whispers angrily against his mouth.

"I already told you-"

"- yeah, I know. 'A mission'." She shoves him away. "I know exactly what you're calling your little girlfriends these days."

"You're being ridiculous."

"Am I?"

She isn't, and they both know it.

4.

 ** _"I'm feeling panicked and rushed and hurried. I'm feeling out maneuvered and out-classed, but I'm so happy I can't get worried."_**

 ** _\- Moving Too Fast_**

Everything changes within a month.

He ranks up, going from a level five to a level six after completing his most recent mission successfully (acquired some alien tech or another with no losses to his team and captured two hostiles for questioning). Maria Hill herself hands him his new credentials.

Skye celebrates his promotion by asking him to live with her. They find an apartment that weekend and move in the following week.

"Do you sometimes feel like..." She starts to say one night as they lay in bed, but appears to think better of it.

He picks up where her sentence left off. "Things kinda feel like they're spinning out of control, don't they?"

She nods. He agrees, but doesn't want to say so. He knows what a lucky bastard he is, especially considering his track record.

He pulls her close and kisses her forehead, and prays that this feeling never goes away.

10.

 _"True, I tend to follow in his stride, instead of side by side, I take his cue... but I'm a part of that, aren't I?"_

 _\- A Part of That_

SHIELD can throw one hell of a party when they want to.

Nobody in the agency celebrates holidays, really, since the bad guys don't take a day off. But once a year, a handful of the upper echelon would get together for a few hours of boozing and good times. Nobody below a level Eight is even invited.

Skye is getting all this information second hand, of course. Still a level two agent and in the middle of her second attempt at her field exams (she failed her first exams miserably) technically, she has no right to know about the party, much less attend.

But Grant insists, and after a good deal of convincing (and a few tears on her part), she puts on her nicest dress and plasters a smile on her face before looping her arm through Golden Boy's.

As she expected, she spends most of her night clutching her purse and standing in the corner while Grant makes his rounds through the group of his peers. He pauses long enough to get her new glasses of wine or plant a kiss on her cheek or shoulder, but someone else always beckons to him before long and she is left a wallflower.

Watching him work the room, it's hard to begrudge him his popularity. He is charming, and smart, and handsome. The best since Romanoff, she's been told more than once. And he is all hers.

Shouldn't that be enough?

6.

 ** _"Shouldn't I want the world to see the brilliant girl who inspires me?"_**

 ** _\- The Schmuel Song_**

Sometimes, he surprises her with gifts.

Tonight he puts a poorly wrapped rectangular parcel in her lap and waits eagerly for her to open it.

"What's this for?" Skye asks, not opening at once like he'd hoped, but examining it.

"You said you had a crummy day, right?"

"All my days in comms are kinda crummy."

"... Right." He nudges the package. "Open it."

She does, letting the wrapping paper fall to the floor to reveal a children's book.

"Are you trying to send me a message, Grant?"

"What? No!" He points to the title. It reads _Everying I Need To Know I Learned From a Little Golden Book_. "Read it."

At his behest, she does, flipping through the pages to look at the pictures and read the accompanying sentences aloud. It's a cutesy compilation book, the kind of thing she would pretend to be indifferent towards but secretly loves.

She arrives at the last few pages. Paperclipped to a picture of Santa that reads "Believe in Santa Claus…" is the number for Grant's Krav Maga coach. On the opposite page, a drawing of a couple with the words "... love at first sight," he's taped a flash drive containing all his notes from his field training exams.

As she turns to the last page -a picture of a cruise ship with the words "and that your ship will come in" written beneath it- Grant produces a second present from behind his back. This one is more elegantly wrapped, a red bow on top of a velvet case. He opens it for her to reveal a delicate white gold watch with a mother of pearl face. She gasps.

"You have everything you need to get out of comms for good. The coach, the resources..." he balances the box on her knee," and the time." He removes the watch from the box and puts it on her left wrist, then kisses her hand. "Have I mentioned today how lucky I am to be in love with you?"

8\. _"The torture is just exquisite while I'm waiting for you to visit."- A Summer In Ohio_

Field agent training camp meant several months away from home; from him. It isn't ideal, but she is sure it would be worth it, as long as she could pass her exams.

Which, as she buries her head in her books again before groaning her frustration, is looking less and less likely. Her brain is on fire from all the information that has been pumped into it in the past few weeks. She needs a break.

Pulling her laptop out from beneath her bunk, Skye starts writing an email to Grant.

 _Hey stranger. How's things? Good here, too. Thanks for asking._

 _Except... I'm pretty sure I share a room with a former stripper. She talks about someone named Wayne a lot. As far as I can tell, Wayne is either a truck driver or a pet snake._

 _The food here isn't horrible. Not great. But not horrible. I'm sure thats supposed to build character or something, right?_

 _The trainers here talk about you like you're the fucking prodigal son. Seriously. Are teachers supposed to worship their students like this? I don't know if it's making them nicer to me or harder on me. (Spoiler alert: weirdly enough, it's both) But hey, it's all good. The weapons coach even showed me some video of you practicing quick-draws and man, was little Grant a sloppy shot in the beginning._

 _Come see me soon. Please. You can't see it, but I'm on my knees (you know, where you like me)._

 _Love,_

 _Mrs. Grant Ward_

7.

 ** _"... No that ones Jerry Seinfeld, that ones John Lennon there... No, the Dakota; the San Remo is up a few blocks... have you been inside the museum? We should go meet the dinosaurs..."_**

 ** _\- The Next Ten Minutes_**

She's standing on the balcony of their apartment. It's dusk. She's wearing a black tank top that leaves her shoulders, his favorite part of her body, exposed. A glass of red wine is in her left hand; with her right, she absently twirls a strand of her long brown hair.

He's never seen anything more perfect.

"Hey." Grant whispers as he comes up behind her and wraps an arm around her waist. "What are you doing for the next ten minutes?"

She smiles and leans against him. "What did you have in mind?"

He presses a kiss to her shoulder. "Want to share your life with me?"

"Grant..."

"Just for the next ten minutes. We can handle ten minutes. And if we make it, can I ask you for another ten?"

"Okay."

They stand like this for ten minutes exactly. Grant counts it out in his head. When the time has passed, he turns her around to face him.

"Skye," he whispers, not because he's trying to be soft but because his throat is suddenly, inexplicably dry. He slowly lowers to one knee.

Her eyes go wide; wider than he's ever seen.

"What are you doing" She asks with a gasp.

He's withdrawn a small black box from his pocket and opened it to face her. Another small gasp as she lays eyes on the ring.

"All I'm asking for is ten minutes," he says. "Every ten minutes for the rest of our lives. Skye, will you-"

Her hand covering his shushes him.

"I know what you're going to say. But let me say this first."

Skye isn't one to get scared. She can count the moments she's been terrified on one hand, the most recent incident involving being shouted down by a very livid Agent Hand. But this?

This was Hand times a hundred. Her heart plummeted to her feet before jumping into her throat as she looked at the ring again.

"I'm messy. I'm cluttered. My background is full of gaps. The fact that I'm a functioning adult and not a meth-abusing murderer, is a miracle and I know that."

Grant smirks. "You're kinda ruining my proposal here, Skye,"

"Just shush," she says, but laughs before continuing. "What I'm trying to say is, on paper, we don't make sense. We shouldn't even get along, let alone be in love. But we do."

"And we are."

"And it's beautiful."

"So, Skye, will you-"

She kisses him before he can finish. "For the next ten lifetimes," she whispers against his lips as he slides the ring onto her finger.

 _"That's one's John Lennon... that's the San Remo... Isn't that the museum? Can we go see the dinosaurs…"_

9.

 ** _"It's not a problem, it's just a challenge, it's a challenge to resist temptation."- A Miracle Would Happen_**

Were there always so many attractive female agents in SHIELD? Grant can't be sure. If there were, they'd never paid him any mind before, but suddenly his level eight clearance gets him many perks. Better parking, the ability to skip the line in the cafeteria, and a bevy of long-legged, tight-skirted agents clawing for the chance to file his paperwork.

"Happy to serve under you, Agent Ward," one model-esque blond says pointedly as he hands her his file. The entendre is not lost on him.

Of course, Skye is at his side in a second, boldly staring down the agent, either ignoring or oblivious to the fact she was outranked by three levels.

"What was that about?" he asks as the other agent stalks away. He has to turn entirely towards Skye to resist watching the way the agent's hips sway as she walks off.

"That's funny," she says, though clearly not amused. "I was just about to ask you the same question."

6.

 _"I will not be the girl who gets asked how it feels to be trotting along at the genius' heels." - Climbing Uphill_

She's going to fail. One week into training camp, and she knows that for certain. The information they were giving her: it just wouldn't stick. The skills they tried to teach her: none of them came as naturally as hacking did.

She still says "bang" every time her gun goes off. Her instructor does not find it amusing.

Later that night, she decides to call it off. She sits on the deck of her cabin, phone in her lap, Grant's name highlighted. " _Come get me_ ," she would say. " _I don't want to do this_." She wonders if he will ask questions (he won't); she wonders if he will try to talk her into staying (he will).

And dammit, he'll probably succeed.

"Okay, Skye," she says to herself, closing her eyes and taking a deep breath. "Why do you want to do this?"

She isn't even sure what she meant by "this". "This" could mean quitting, and as she mentally runs through the list, her reasons all come back to it seeming hopeless, like a long uphill climb. Admitting that to herself doesn't make her feel any better.

So she changes her "this".

"This" means training to be a field agent. Why does she want to do it? To get out of comms is the easy answer. To try something new, easier still. No, what she really wants, what she hopes to get from this, is to finally feel like Grant's equal. Not that he'd ever made her feel like his lesser; she just knew people talked.

 _If I can become a field agent,_ she thinks, _maybe the scales will be balanced at last_.

She goes back inside.

11.

 ** _"I will not fail so you can be comfortable... I will not lose because you can't win."_**

 **-** ** _If I Didn't Believe In You_**

It is all his fault. If Skye is to be believed, everything under the sun is all his fault, and he is about to snap.

So he does. For maybe the seventh time in his 30 years of life, Grant loses it.

"All right, Skye. Just stop it! Just stop and listen to me!"

Her mouth snaps shut, but her eyes are still afire. Inside, she is raging.

"I know," he begins, forcing his voice to sound much calmer than it had been just seconds ago, "I know you're mad that you have to retake training-"

"- this has nothing to do with training-"

"- and I know that when we are apart, you tend to let your imagination run wild."

"Excuse you?! My imagination? You have some big brass ones if you think for one second you can dismiss what I saw as 'imagination'." She grabs his hand, pointing angrily at his left ring finger. "Does this mean nothing to you? Clearly, it means nothing to those girls but it's supposed to mean the fucking world to you."

He yanks his hand away from her. "I can't talk to you when you're like this."

"Like you talk to me at all? Ever since I started training, you treat me like a subordinate."

He straightens his suit jacket, even though it's perfectly in line; he just needs something to do with his hands. "I can't do this with you right now. I have a mission."

"Go. I'm not stopping you. God knows, I would never dream of getting in the way of a level eight."

Grant doesn't respond, even though he has equally venomous answers at the ready. Instead, he goes through motions of leaving, like this were any other day; he picks up his briefcase, adjusts his tie, and lastly brushes his lips against her forehead.

She bristles at the contact.

4.

 _"Think of what's passed, because we can do better than that."_

 _\- I Can Do Better Than That_

Grant wants to see where she's from. So she shows him.

His silence as she lets the car roll to a stop confirms to her that the last thing he was expecting was an orphanage.

"Skye, is this..."

"You wanted to know where I started," she says as she puts the car in park and motions to the door of Saint Agnes. "This is it."

"It's an orphanage."

"I know."

He sighs and looks at her with pity. "Skye..."

She laughs. "You don't have to feel sorry for me. I don't feel sorry for me."

"But an orphanage?"

Her shoulders lift in a shrug. "It's the hand I was dealt."

"I don't know how you can be so positive about it."

"Well... I wasn't always," she confesses, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear as she recalls, "I was an angry kid. The nuns were afraid I wouldn't amount to anything. But I knew I could. I knew, if I could just get out of there, I could do better."

"And did you?"

She slyly puts her hands in his. "You tell me."

13.

 ** _"... And then I start making conscious, deliberate mistakes."_**

 ** _\- Nobody Needs To Know_**

It's Skye's birthday. He's flying to Ohio to see her in two hours, but he's still in bed, limbs tangled with the tall blond, who is still fast asleep.

He unwinds himself from her, covering her naked body with the sheet in an effort to preserve her modesty before turning away and sitting on the edge of the bed.

How was he going to explain this, he wonders.

What a stupid question. He isn't going to explain it. Nobody needs to know what happened last night, and if anyone in the world can keep a secret, it's him.

And if there's anyone in the world he cant keep a secret from, it was Skye.

He hadn't even taken his wedding ring off; he remembered seeing it glint in the light as he undressed the blond.

Tight throat, sweating hands, pounding heart. Grant forces the panic to recede.

 _Nobody needs to know._ he decides. Nobody needs to know.

He puts his head in his hands and stays like that for a long time.

2.

 _"Finally, something takes me away!"_

 _\- Goodbye Until Tomorrow/I Could Never Rescue You_

"Don't go." She pleads, wrapping her legs around his waist.

Grant laughs. God, she already loves that sound.

"If I'm late, Coulson's gonna have my ass."

"That's a shame, cuz it's such a cute ass." She grabs it for good measure to playfully emphasize her point. Like the rest of him, it's tight and firm and she feels like she will never, ever get enough of it. Of him. She lifts her hips upward, grinding against his dick. She knows it can't lead anywhere now but it's so worth it to see his eyes narrow with lust.

"Can I see you tomorrow?" she asks huskily, and she hopes he is able to divine that she wants to do so much more than simply see him.

"If I'm back in time."

"Be back in time."

He kisses her again. She lets it deepen for only a moment before playfully pushing him away.

"Don't kiss me goodbye again! You've got to go, remember?"

He's on his feet and scrambling for his clothes while she watches from the bed. It's hilarious to see Agent Grant Ward search frantically for his missing socks, but she feels a pang of regret when that Adonis body of his disappears under clothes.

"Tomorrow." he says as she walks him to the door, draped in the bed sheet.

She places a kiss on the corner of his mouth, just out of reach for him to reciprocate it. While smoothing the creases out of his collar, she makes a promise of her own.

"I will be waiting for you."

15.

 ** _"I don't know what the hell is left to do."_**

 ** _\- Goodbye Until Tomorrow/I Could Never Rescue You_**

The silver ring is tarnished. He regards it with remorse and a hint of irony, seeing it as a fitting parallel to the state of their union.

He writes three sentences, but they all ring false, so he scratches a line through each. His fourth attempt is two words only; it's all he can think to say.

His wedding ring acts as a paper weight.


End file.
